Ink Or Bits

As we welcome the rise of technology, we are caught in the sonic boom of progress and forget old fashions, and old ways of living. With our new innovations, we are more efficient and bring about easier and faster ways to complete tasks. We managed after all this rejoice, to forget truly about life without a PC. It was meant to happen, it was meant the moment the first computer was sold and we discovered how to use it even for the simplest thing. Technology gives, but it also takes. "The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people." (Karl Marx)

What Ms.Boxer gives us is a complete view of blogs, and their superiority to books or papers. She gives clear and supported ideas about why would it not be easy to do a book about blogs. But what is truly admirable is the way in which she doesn't attack the books, but rather she shows why a blog is more efficient and gives the reader understanding not leaving us with incomplete information of why a blog is so useful. She begins with her problem, and then introduces us into the blog world (for those who are not familiar with them), and makes an almost visual list of the blogging ways and web advantages of blogs. "A blog, for those who don't know, is a journal or log that appears on a Web site. It is written on line, read on line, and updated on line. It's there for anyone with an Internet connection to see and (in many cases) comment on." ("Blogs" by Sara Boxer). With this she justifies the practicality of blogging and how information of any sort, can be updated in a second, and give you fresh and accurate information about basically any subject. Unlike the blog, a newspaper or a book will always remain the same, and will always be "closed" to any new information. A book is perpetual, it stays, when you finish a book, you close it. When you finish reading a blog entry you know there will always be more, and can always interact with its author. 

Nevertheless, I will always appreciate a book more. You can touch it, you feel it. It is physical. a blog you are not in contact with. You can only view it through a screen. A physical boundary. 

It is actually not a race, or a competition. It is not apples against apples. Books are for one thing blogs are for others. 

Boxer gives blogs a special advantage, she shows us how one blog is not really just one, meaning that in the internet "links" are created, therefore any type of information that is seeked will lead you to other points of views an opinions, to endless possibilities. "Links are the Web equivalent of footnotes, except that they take you directly to the source." ("Blogs" by Sarah Boxer). Boxer proves a true thing with little information, or argument, she is right. Information in a book is limited. Information in the web is basically unlimited. 

A very important advantage in a blog, is being able to share any information you want in very little time, unlike a book takes time, it comes in a complete piece, or volume (sometimes more than one), and you need and editor, a publisher, and most important: buyers. A blog is free, and writers can be anyone from a student to a dog walker. "There are political blogs, confessional blogs, gossip blogs, sex blogs, mommy blogs, science blogs, soldier blogs, gadget blogs, fiction blogs, video blogs, photo blogs, and cartoon blogs, to name a few. Some people blog alone and some in groups...

Every sport, every war, every hurricane brings out a crop of bloggers, who often outdo the mainstream media in timeliness, geographic reach, insider information, and obsessive detail. You can read about the Iraq war from Iraqi bloggers, from American soldiers (often censored now), or from scholars..." ("Blogs" by Sarah Boxer). A blog can be crafted by anyone. Thanks to this free way of writing, information that otherwise would never see the light in a respectable public, can now be spread out all over the globe. Literature is not limited now to poetry, novels, or history, our eyes were opened to a new way of writing, bloggers supply information that otherwise is so specific cannot be found in a book, because a respectable audience would not be found. "Are they a new literary genre? Do they have their own conceits, forms, and rules? Do they have an essence?" ("Blogs" by Sarah Boxer). 

Most of the bloggers are genuine helpers that know about a certain subject. you are not enslaved to read the blog. The author will only post useful info, since this is a quick system, no time to lose. "They're not responsible for your education.. Keep up with me don't or don't. It's up to you." ("Blogs" by Sarah Boxer). Because we need information quick, neat, and clean in Blogging we care much if we use vivid pictures or nice spelling. Boxer surely knows it is important, but since a blog is not a classic novel, what matters is that it helps you out, and that you get it. It doesn't have to be fancy or embellished with nice words. Efficiency. "Sometimes they don't even stop to punctuate." ("Blogs" by Sarah Boxer).

finally to think about mixing a "reckless" blog with a "slow" book is not bizarre. It's a literary and intellectual combination. It's the way of the future, books first provided internet with information. Now internet makes books, makes better books with the point of view of not one single author, but of 100 million of them.